Lenten Retreat

School administrators, presidents, principals take part in Lenten retreat to reflect on vocation of educating youth

MADISON  Taking a moment to reflect on the vocation of educating the young at diocesan schools, school administrators, presidents and principals came together for a Lenten Retreat March 11 at St. Paul’s Inside the Walls here led by Bishop Serratelli. The Lenten retreat was coordinated by the diocesan schools office and included two talks by the Bishop and the celebration of Mass at which he was the principal celebrant.

Bishop Serratelli’s two talks focused on two persons in the Bible. The first talk discussed the prophet Gideon from the Book of Judges in the Old Testament. In the second talk, the Bishop spoke about the rich young man and his encounter with Jesus from Matthew in the New Testament.

Gideon led a small army of 300 to defeat an immensely large and powerful Midianites army after following God’s instructions to make his number of troops smaller. Because he followed God’s will, Gideon successfully destroyed these enemies. The Bishop said, “God consistently works with people that are not that self assured. In a certain sense it almost seems to be a prerequisite. We know from the Bible, God chooses the humble and disdains the proud. God chooses to work with the weak and uses the most unlikely characters so that the great work of salvation or whatever our vocation is done and the glory is given to him and not to us. Gideon didn’t have a lot of confidence; he didn’t have a strong faith.”

“There will be a lot of times in our lives when we are like Gideon left with very little human help around us,” the Bishop said. “Our friends might not always understand what we are doing or our co-workers. When the going gets hard and the battle gets rough, in some cases we can count on one or two fingers who will stay with us and support us. But the point is with 300 men Gideon defeated the Midianites. If we do God’s will and use His strength, we will do the mission He wants us to do in the way He wants.”

To the school leaders, the Bishop challenged them to be boldly Cath­olic. “We are not always the best teachers; we are not always the best administrators. We may not always be the best public speakers but no matter what our resources might be, in the hands of God they can do God’s work. God is calling each of us where you are today. God is calling each of us with our limited resources. He is enlisting us to advance His kingdom. In our secular world, in our anti-Christian day and even within our own ranks there’s a temptation to cave in to relativism and to falsely tolerate the times. One thing we need to say is to be boldly Catholic. This is your particular calling and teaching as teachers and administrators in our Catholic school system.”

During the Bishop’s second talk, he spoke about the rich young man and his meeting with Jesus. During this meeting, the rich young man, who kept the commandments, asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“To achieve this goal, the rich young man had to persevere, to not give up and so he comes to the right place for help — to Jesus,” said the Bishop. “The rich young man’s question is what we all want to know.”

The Bishop reminded the school administrators to remember that the young man is deeply spiritual and concerned about religious things but does not have his priorities in order. Jesus tells him to sell all his possessions.

“On our own none of us is able to own salvation. It is pure gift. The gifts of grace and salvation are too big of gifts to earn on our own,” said the Bishop. “Without God, it is utterly impossible [to receive eternal life]. With God, everything is possible. The rich young man needed to see that His good works didn’t earn his place in the kingdom. What he needed to do was simply receive the grace that Christ was willing to offer.”

The Bishop said, “Sometimes we think the evangelical councils of poverty, chastity and obedience are the private domain of religious life. They take the vows. They have to live it. But poverty, chastity and obedience are the way of discipleship for every Christian. With the vows, the religious show an example of what the rest of us need to do by virtue of our Baptism. What is the purpose of a disciple being poor, chaste or obedient to God’s will? The purpose of that is the emptying of ourselves.”

Following the Bishop’s talks, the school administrators, presidents and principals gathered together for Mass.

Presentation Sister Margaret Murphy, principal of St. Andrew School in Clifton, who attended the retreat, said, “Bishop Serratelli was very practical and I feel encouraged. He reminds each of us that sometimes we are not suited perfectly for what we do but we are given this vocation to teach the youth of our Diocese.”